


Lancelot and the House of Fame

by ConanDoylesCarnations



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, Le Morte d'Arthur - Thomas Malory, Mabinogion (Myth)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sleep Paralysis, Implied trans Lancelot if you want him to be. Hashtag trans rights, M/M, Mutual Pining, No prior knowledge of the Mabinogion is needed dw!, Nor of medieval stuff I promise, Slow Burn, also it's Yule!, but through ~symbolism~, i guess, implied sex, just in case, just lots and lots of medieval stuff, more Welsh stuff this time too!, shameless borrowing from Chaucer, shameless commentary on authorship/readership and straightwashing, some bits are in verse!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28291473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConanDoylesCarnations/pseuds/ConanDoylesCarnations
Summary: 'Yuletide again.  Camelot was alive with all the joys of the season’s festivities: enormous boughs of holly and ivy were wreathed around the halls, songs and spices filled the air, faces were red with laughter and the midwinter cold.  It was lovely, heart-warming—but Lancelot was not feeling the spirit.  From where he traipsed through the snowy courtyard, jubilant strains of ‘Nove Lucis Hodie’ reached him, and he felt almost penitent to find that they did not fill him with the cheer they had always used to.The reason for his melancholy was—over there, chatting with some ladies, who were visibly trying to keep up their modest manners despite holding the attention of the fairest knight in all of Camelot.  Lancelot noticed this with a wave of resentment.'A poet appears at Camelot's Yuletide feast, singing of a place where fame will be granted to the fortunate.  Lancelot is suspicious: is he just jealous that Gawain seems more taken with the poet than with him?  Or is there something sinister afoot?
Relationships: Gawain/Lancelot du Lac (Arthurian), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 16





	1. Liber Primus

> **'God turne us every drem to goode!' — Geoffrey Chaucer, _The House of Fame_ (c.1380), I.pr.1**

_**Incipit Liber Primus** _

Yuletide again. Camelot was alive with all the joys of the season’s festivities: enormous boughs of holly and ivy were wreathed around the halls, songs and spices filled the air, faces were red with laughter and the midwinter cold. It was lovely, heart-warming—but Lancelot was not feeling the spirit. From where he traipsed through the snowy courtyard, jubilant strains of ‘ _Nove Lucis Hodie’_ reached him, and he felt almost penitent to find that they did not fill him with the cheer they had always used to.*

The reason for his melancholy was—over there, chatting with some ladies, who were visibly trying to keep up their modest manners despite holding the attention of the fairest knight in all of Camelot. Lancelot noticed this with a wave of resentment. He very deliberately turned the corner, crossing a little drawbridge over the moat and entering the castle grounds. He walked for a while amongst the trees, stopping for a spell to watch a squirrel scamper up a pine, and then again, at some enthusiastic chirping which revealed itself to be a robin when it flitted out of a holly bush and up into the leafless branches of a splendid old oak. Ordinarily, such observations would have brought him cheer, and because they presently did not, he almost felt worse for it. So he gave up on the grounds and returned to the castle.

As he was crossing the drawbridge again, he was suddenly hit by something wet and cold—he looked up to find himself face to face with his assailant, and rather flustered. ‘Lancelot! _Joyeux Noël!’_ Oh, _why_ , for a start, did he have to have such beautiful, gentle green eyes? Lancelot just about ducked the second of Gawain’s snowballs. ‘That’s more like the kind of reactions one expects from the greatest Knight of the Round Table!’ Gawain laughed. And then he moved closer, holding his hands up to show them empty of threatening snow. ‘How are you today? Have you seen the snowman the squires have built? If only they put so much effort into their squirely duties.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lancelot with a smile. ‘Looking forward to the goose?’**

‘Redundant question, my friend, as well you know. Looking forward to the customary bizarre and dangerous Yuletide happening?’

Lancelot felt ill. ‘Sounds like _you_ are,’ he said.

‘Well,’ laughed Gawain, ‘fame and fortune, that’s the game, isn’t it?’ Oh, fame and fortune. Lancelot worried his lip. It had used to be the game, and then he had met Gawain, and suddenly it had not seemed so much like a game anymore. Now there was someone to care for, and so to worry about, and this troubled him, deeply. Added to which, he did not remotely dare tell him—pardie, no!—for a spectacular variety of reasons needless to be listed. So now ‘fame and fortune’, for Lancelot, just meant Gawain putting himself in danger, and it was in silence that he suffered every time Gawain went off alone in search of them.

‘Fame and fortune. Yes, I suppose so,’ said Lancelot. Too clipped. Gawain’s brow furrowed. 

‘Are you well, Lancelot?’

‘Oh, yes, quite well,’ he lied, and if it was unconvincing, Gawain did not react. He nodded, just a little thoughtfully.

‘Anyway,’ he said, grabbing, in excitement, with _very_ icy hands, Lancelot’s own, which sent the most tremendous thrill through Lancelot that may have been the cold or may have been something else, ‘I was just on my way to join in with some carolling—will you come?’

In many ways, if one had offered to open at random the bristling pages of any given bestiary and Lancelot had been forced to fight whatever monstrous, many-toothed, fire-breathing adversary was there depicted, the notion would have scared him less than that of singing. But for the man before him, and yet more so with his hands in his, he would have done anything. ‘Of course I will,’ said Lancelot. 

‘Wonderful,’ said Gawain. And to Lancelot’s simple delight, he did not let go of his hands as together they hurried off, in the direction of the more or less tuneful rounds of _iubilamus!_ and _exultamus!_ then echoing from a different courtyard.

*

The Yuletide feast was in full swing that evening when Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr burst into the hall.*** Awareness of his entrance filtered rather slowly round the Table, boisterous and distracted as it was by its revelries. ‘My Lord,’ said Lancelot to the King. No response; too busy drinking and laughing with Guinevere. ‘My Lord,’ he repeated, and gave him a nudge. Arthur finally raised his head, with a brief look of surprise. 

‘You have news from the gate?’ he called above the hubbub. People quietened a little at this.

‘I do,’ Glewlwyd called back, apparently unfazed by the delay. ‘My Lord—

In all my days as keeper of this gate,  
And all my ranging _aventures_ with thee,  
From East to West,  
O’er wave and hill,  
Of all the wonders it has been my fate  
To witness, men and monsters strange to see,  
Yet still the best  
In wordsmith’s skill  
I’ve ever met, is here. Aye, Lord, I know it:  
In all the world, he is the greatest poet.’

‘By Jupiter,’ cried Arthur, ‘if this is so, bring him in at once!’ Glewlwyd nodded and hastened to do as he was bid. 

Maybe, thought Lancelot, he had imagined some Castle rule about none but the offspring of a lawful ruler of a country, or a craftsperson who brings their craft, being admitted into the court during a feast, once the first cup had been poured, and the first knife plunged into meat. Lancelot had not imagined it, but, in that moment, he wished that he had: he sighed through his nose, and Gawain very loudly through his mouth with an accompanying eyeroll and dramatic stretch back in his seat, as Kay the Seneschal spoke up in that surly self-righteous manner of his. ‘My Lord,’ he growled, ‘are we to break on his account the Castle rule about none but the offspring of a lawful ruler of a country, or a craftsperson who brings their craft, being admitted into the court during a feast, once the first cup had been poured, and the first knife plunged into meat? By the hand of my friend, we should not.’

Now, in his defence, he did have a point. Not necessarily the point he thought he was making, which Lancelot was quite certain was just baldly legalistic of him, as was typical—but a point nonetheless. Good things seldom came of unannounced visits to Arthur’s court: at least, dubious happenings usually ensued. That was why Gawain’s face (Lancelot now looking over at him) was flushed with excitement at Glewlwyd’s declaration. Well, it was true that Lancelot’s element was in errantry, and not—emphatically not—in the careful civilities of courtly life, which was all eggshells to him. But he was still suspicious, and only more so now he saw how Gawain’s attention was engaged.

‘If such a man as Glewlwyd says is indeed at our gate,’ said Arthur, ‘no such rules must stand in his way. Think what entertainment he shall provide for our Yule festivities!’ A miscellaneous set of cheers went up at this, and then the doors were opened again, so Kay was forced to shake his head and say no more.

Everyone in the hall peered at the doorway in the hopes of getting the first look at the visitor as he entered. A susurrus went round the room when he did. He walked in quite slowly, stately, in fact, emanating a look of supreme assurance. Lancelot was not sure he had ever seen anyone appear so wholly unfazed by the imposing spectacle of Arthur’s court. It was impossible to say how old he was. He looked like a young man, but there again he looked like an old one, or did he just give off an air of unplaceable wisdom? Was it wisdom? And then he was young again, and then—why, the longer he stared, the more uneasy felt Lancelot. He looked around. No one else appeared to share his sentiments, so perhaps his worries were unfounded. He looked back again. The poet was all swathed in furs, as befit the season. Lancelot was struck by the variety of beasts represented in his costume – he thought he could make out stag, hog, and, yes, that was certainly the stitched face of a wolf on his shoulder. Beneath them shone gold brocade of the French type Lancelot knew well from his youth. In his left hand he held a tall, gnarled, very ancient-looking wooden staff, intricately carved with all manner of geometric designs, chipped and worn with what was clearly unfathomable age.

The poet advanced as close to Arthur as the Round Table would allow, and fell to one knee. ‘My Lord,’ he began, and his voice was just the same as his walk. Had Camelot ever been so silent? At these two simple words alone, all the court was held in rapt attention, Lancelot included. ‘Great Arthur, and all you my ladies, and my lords, brave Knights of the Round Table. I thank you heartily for accommodating me.’ Lancelot expected Kay to huff, and would have been surprised to have heard nothing out of him, had not his attention been snatched away once more by the poet’s continuing to talk.

‘O ladies fair, and gentle knights,  
All ye who wish to prove your might,  
Lend me now your eager ears—  
Hear of a place that has no peers.  
A tale I’ll tell you, if ye will,  
Of wonder, magic mirabil,  
The story of that setting strange,  
If ye should chance the small exchange:  
Just one request is all I ask;  
In sooth, it is a simple task,  
A task I think ye’ll take most glad.  
And should ye take the task thus bad,  
And should Fortuna take your side,  
With you shall Fame fore’er abide—  
By all mouths magnified:  
My pact I shall provide,  
Yea, sanctified,  
Should ye decide  
That ye shall pick me as your poet guide.’

His words hung like smoke in the air. All were captivated. Lancelot prised his gaze away, with difficulty, to look at Gawain – and found Gawain gazing at the poet with lips slightly parted and something in his eyes that sent through Lancelot an unexpected thrill of what could only be called _jealousy_. It was with bitterness – bitterness he knew was unreasonable and so was all the more grieving – that Lancelot turned back to the poet.

Arthur, who appeared just as awestruck as the rest of Camelot, finally responded to the poet’s request. ‘I am sure I speak on behalf of every member of the Round Table,’ he began, and Lancelot alone seemed to shift in his seat, ‘when I say what an honour it is to be graced, this Yule, with your unparalleled company. Tell us the tale. Anything we can grant in return, we shall.’ At that, Guinevere opened her mouth, but Arthur would not – could not? – hear. It was with some relief on Lancelot’s part that he and she managed to catch each other’s eyes and share a sympathetic glance. It had been decided, though, and with a small smile, the poet stood again, as he was bidden by the King. ‘I shall tell the tale, then,’ he said, and Lancelot felt the room swell with excitement, ‘—at tomorrow night’s feast.’

A great wave of disappointment flooded round the Table, but Arthur hushed them all. ‘As you wish, good poet. Tomorrow evening cannot come quick enough.’ A few bold voices cried for Arthur to make the poet stay and tell it now, but he would not be persuaded, and the poet was led by a pretty squire in the direction of the guests’ wing. At the threshold he turned momentarily back. ‘Good things come to those who wait,’ he said with a wink, and was gone.

The rest of that evening passed in great anticipation, apparently felt by all but Lancelot and Guinevere. Lancelot got away from the feast almost as soon as possible, but before he left he went to Gawain and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Gawain, would you come with me, please?’

Gawain looked up at him. ‘What’s the matter, Lancelot?’ He batted away the hand of one of his brothers trying to steal his food while he was distracted.

‘I need to talk to you in private. Please.’ At the seriousness of this request, Gawain looked Lancelot up and down, which threatened to make him blush, and then stood up, pushing his plate to his brothers, without glancing away. He followed Lancelot out of the hall and to his rooms.

As soon as the door was shut behind them, Lancelot said simply, ‘I don’t trust him.’

Gawain laughed. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.

Lancelot looked at him helplessly. He had woefully underestimated how much Gawain must have drunk. Unfortunately, his tipsiness, and the way his face glowed with it, only made matters worse for Lancelot. ‘There was just something about him,' he persevered, though now he knew it was fruitless, '—don’t you think? And to make one of those open-ended requests—you know as well as I do how well they usually turn out.’

‘We always deal with it though, don’t we? And it’s good to have something to go and do. It’s not like you to want to remain in Camelot any longer than you must.’ Gawain was, of course, right on both counts. Oh, perhaps Lancelot was worrying over nothing—it would hardly be the first time. He looked at Gawain, who looked back at him with some concern, which made Lancelot’s heart leap, so he averted his eyes again. ‘Oh,' said Gawain. 'You're—you’re really being serious, aren’t you?’ He was swaying a bit, so he steadied himself on the forearm of Lancelot, whom speech momentarily failed. Oh, St. Thomas of Kent, this was not going to work. He took a deep breath and tried again.

‘I—yes. I know I shouldn’t be, I just…’ It was not Gawain's fault that he did not know—well, quite simply, did not know that Lancelot loved him with such a passion and in such a manner as was supposed to be reserved for one’s lady and one’s lady only. That, indeed, Lancelot had never felt like this towards a lady, and there had not been, it had to be said, any shortage of possible candidates. Lancelot knew that Gawain could perfectly well look after himself; on that front he was just as successful as Lancelot, if not more so. He knew too that Gawain had even more lady candidates than Lancelot, and that he had had rather a lot of… _dalliances_ , in his time. Whether he had had anything comparable with men—for Lancelot was well aware that he was not the only one to feel that way, though one had to keep it on the quiet—Lancelot did not know and certainly would not ask. None of this could he tell him, so how was he to explain his worry? _And_ how was he to cope if he kept his hand there for much longer—

‘There’s just something about him,’ continued Lancelot desperately. ‘It was just a sense I had. And the way everyone was so—captivated…’

Gawain swayed again and his hand crept a little further up Lancelot's arm, whose heart raced ridiculously. ‘Are you jealous, Sir Lancelot?’

‘What?’ Lancelot’s gaze snapped back to Gawain, but Gawain was grinning, standing upright by himself again; it had meant nothing; so Lancelot forced himself to fake a laugh too.

‘He’s just a good poet,’ said Gawain. 'That's all.' And 'Struth, maybe that _was_ all it was. Lancelot was in love, and the poet had held Gawain’s attention when Lancelot couldn’t. It was just Lancelot worrying overmuch again—and he’d spoilt Gawain’s evening for nothing.

‘You’re right. Pardon me, Gawain,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’ve ruined your evening and wasted your time.’

‘Oh, Lancelot, nonsense,’ he said; and then, in a slightly softer voice, ‘No time spent with you is wasted. Even if you _are_ jealous of some poet.’ He grinned again, and patted his shoulder. ‘Pardon me,’ he shook his head, ‘I've drunk far too much wine. But Lancelot,' he whetted his lips, '—forgive me—I feel you’ve not been quite yourself recently. Are you _sure_ you’re all right?’

Absolutely not. But he couldn’t tell Gawain that. ‘Yes, thank you, Gawain. Perfectly all right.’

Gawain looked him over again for a moment, a look which made Lancelot burn, and then went towards the door. ‘Well, you know where I am, should you need me.’ _I always need you_ , thought Lancelot, grimly, but would’ve cut off his hand before saying it. ‘In the meantime, I’m off to bed. Goodnight, Lancelot.’

‘Goodnight, Gawain. And thank you.’ _And I love you._

They smiled at each other, and Gawain left.

Lancelot stared at the door for a minute or so, then shook his head, and went to bed.

*

Lancelot had almost forgotten about his concerns until a little before dinner the following evening, when Guinevere met him in a corridor.

‘Oh, Lancelot, just the fellow I was looking for. Have you a moment?’

‘Of course, my Queen.’

She ushered him round a corner, out of sight. This usually meant that she needed to confide in Lancelot some dubious judgement of Arthur’s. She loved Arthur immensely, and _vice versa_ , but for all that he was _the King Arthur_ , like any other human being he had his shortcomings, and impulsiveness was top of the list. Both of them knew that Lancelot was not exactly the _best_ person to come to on such matters, living life as he did through a curious combination of thorough recklessness and obsessive thinking about the future. But they were old friends, and he was fundamentally one of the more sensible fellows at Camelot, and so it was in him that she confided nonetheless. In this instance, Lancelot was not sure whether to be relieved or panicked by what Guinevere had to say.

‘That poet fellow,’ she began, and Lancelot’s attention sharpened violently. He grimaced. ‘Ah, you do feel the same,’ said Guinevere, noticing his reaction. ‘I reckoned so. I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. And—oh, it’s indiscreet of me, but, well— _why_ Arthur insists on making these open-ended deals, by the blessed St. David, I shall never know.’

Lancelot kept his mouth shut as he ought, but it didn’t matter; Guinevere knew him well enough by now to see how he felt at a glance.

‘Well, I’m glad at any rate that you feel the same.’

‘Gawain was of the opinion that I was fretting overmuch.’

Guinevere studied him for a moment, and that made Lancelot blush again, but in a very different way to when Gawain did it. When Guinevere looked at you like that, you felt that every thought you’d had in the last week was written out for her on your forehead by a scribe, in the vernacular and in Latin, complete with rubric and illumination and little rabbits tooting clarions and riding giant snails. Sometimes she did this deliberately, other times it was just _her_. This time Lancelot sensed it was the former; she knew he was hiding something from her, and he knew that he ought to trust her, but Lancelot was Lancelot and he told no one anything. ‘He was, was he?’

‘He was.’

‘You and Gawain…’ Lancelot squirmed; where was his visored helmet, nay, his whole suit of armour, when he needed it, by the Rood, what was he to do—‘Forgive me for asking, but…’

‘My Queen?’ said Lancelot with forced calmness so miraculously measured he impressed even himself. 

‘O, Lancelot, I know how you care for him. Oh, don’t look so worried, my friend—’

He could feel that the colour had drained from his face, and knew that Guinevere had seen. ‘When you say “care”—’

Her face was insinuating in its sympathy.

‘’Swounds, Guinevere,’ he hissed, unable to keep up the politesse any longer, suddenly feeling tears pricking at his eyes, ‘no one else has noticed, have they? And especially not—not him? Oh, Maria, Maria, Maria—’ Guinevere looked increasingly concerned. ‘What would he think if he found out? He’d keep his distance—he’d think me a danger—and Guinevere, how I fret about him, one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table and yet how I fret!’

‘Lancelot, Lancelot, pardon me,’ she said urgently, laying reassuring hands on his, ‘I did not mean to distress you. No, I am quite sure that no one else has the smallest inkling. In fact, I don’t think any of them would suspect it in a thousand years. Most of them have, I think—forgive me—a rather different idea of you than is strictly true.’

Lancelot did not know what she meant. She had opened her mouth to speak again, but at that moment the bells clamoured announcing dinner. Guinevere looked at the floor and tapped her foot agitatedly. ‘Look—as regards tonight,’ she said, ‘I suppose there is nothing to be done but to keep our wits about us,’ she said after a moment. They looked at each other but said nothing more: the poet awaited, with whatever his request might be. They made their separate ways to the great hall.

*

Lancelot sat down, carefully positioned, though he’d never admit it, so he had the best view of both Gawain and the currently empty chair on one side of Arthur that was to be the poet’s. The room, at first characteristically rowdy, suddenly hushed as the poet entered. Lancelot, like all the rest of the Round Table, stared as he took his seat. Oh, but he did not merely _take his seat_. He approached it with that same slow walk that had so captivated them all the previous evening, and did so again that night. A squire drew back his chair; he shifted his cloak and his gowns in such a way that the torchlight shimmered on his gold brocade; he set his staff against his chair so it was safe but just _slightly_ ostentatious, and _then_ he sat down. That was all it took: whatever he did after that, his audience was mesmerised. This performance—Lancelot took a stiff breath—over, Arthur said something introductory (who knew what he said?), the Bishop said Grace, and people began to eat. They could not eat fast enough, but the poet ate steadily, and so it was with the most immense and burning anticipation that the room turned when finally, finally, Arthur called everyone’s attention again—as though it had ever wavered!

Lancelot looked over at Gawain, found him gazing at the poet with eyes that if Gawain had not mentioned _jealousy_ last night, Lancelot might have been less ready to describe as enthralled, enamoured, hungry. He refilled his cup and downed two thirds of it at once. Then he looked to Guinevere. _She_ was looking between _Arthur_ and the poet with an expression Lancelot suddenly worried probably painted his own face in looking at Gawain, so he swallowed uneasily, turned away again, and took to staring resolutely, instead, at his wine. 

A few more words from the King that nobody heard, and the poet began.

**_Explicit Liber Primus_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * 'Nove Lucis Hodie' is a real 14th-century Christmas song; 'iubilamus' and 'exultamus' is an allusion to the medieval Czech Christmas song 'En Virgo Parit Filium'. They both slap -- check out Elthin's versions on YouTube.
> 
> ** Turkeys had not yet reached Britain, so goose was the favourite Christmas dinner (until quite recently, actually). This is pretty much the extent of my research into medieval Christmas, sorry.
> 
> *** Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr is straight out of medieval Welsh Arthuriana -- he's Arthur's part-time gatekeeper in 'Culhwch ac Olwen', the oldest extant Arthurian prose tale, and the eponymous gatekeeper in an even weirder, even older, incomplete poem called 'Pa gur yv y porthaur?' ('What man is the gatekeeper?'). He talks in something like verse when he introduces Culhwch, so his introduction of the poet is a nod to that.
> 
> The poet himself I'll say more about later...


	2. Liber Secundus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The poet sings his story, and makes his request to the Knights of the Round Table.
> 
> Lancelot considers whether he is love-sick, and worries that Gawain might have a thing for the weird poet guy.

**_Incipit Liber Secundus_ **

‘There was once an errant knight, iwis,  
Who knew that he could have no other bliss  
If he were not made famous far and wide.  
Often with thoughts of this he sorely sighed,  
Plagued by them as he was, the twelvemonth through,  
From spring to biting winter, Lent to Yule.  
One day, hearing the fame of other men  
Outstripping far his own, fine tales of when  
They had done this or that fantastic feat,  
This dragon slayed, that tyrant knight y-beat,  
The knight, alas, fell swift into a swoon.  
He dreamt: whence came the dream, be’t by the moon  
Induced, or by some spirit, or his mind,  
I know not, but himself he soon did find  
Standing within a palace made of glass,  
Prismatic, crystalline, dazzling—alas,  
Disorienting too, making reflections shifting,  
Multiple, proliferating. Lifting  
His head, the knight saw then two towering doors,  
Flanked by draped antique statues. So, the floor  
Crossed then the knight, and as he did,  
The doors swung open. Now he was amid  
A room that justified those doors immense,  
And floor to lofty rafters with intense  
Sound was y-filled, voices in panoply,  
Uncountable, unplaceable. And he could see  
At one end of the room, upon a throne  
Masterly made, carved out of gold and bone,  
Holstered with em’rald silk and set with pearls  
That looked like rows of eyes, all wrapped in curls  
Of incense-snaking smoke, there sat a queen,  
The empress of this place, and with eyes keen  
She looked upon the tiny knight below.  
“I am the Lady Fame, as well thou know’st,”  
Said she, and all the palace glassy sang.  
“Make thy request, young knight,”—the rafters rang  
With her strange piercing voice above the rest—  
“But know’st thou any such to me addressed  
Will be only at my discretion granted.”  
In all his senses dazèd and enchanted,  
The knight thought then that he began to hear  
His own name whispered, sung about his ears,  
By all the mouthless voices all around:  
They spoke in tones of awe, and the knight found  
His heart race at this glimpse of what he had  
Dreamed of so very long. So, with voice sad  
And serious, the knight fell to one knee,  
And to the Lady Fame he made his plea:  
“What else is there to earn in life but fame?  
When life’s brief light is out, what shall remain  
Of any mortal but what men shall say?  
How few of all the souls of yesterday  
Do we recall: how many have died twice,  
In body then in memory, the price  
Of leaving this blue earth without acclaim?  
A whisper or a scream is all the same.  
Each deed we do, all that we say and think,  
What boots it if within but half a wink  
Of God’s immortal eyes we are no more?  
Each breath—each year—each laugh—each tear—each war—  
All these are but a sickening, gruesome game,  
A pointless sojourn in this vale of pain,  
If after all this we are not sustained  
In an immortal life of sacred fame.”  
Throughout this ancient speech the Lady gazed  
Upon the knight who in his ardour blazed,  
Though nothing novel to her were his words.  
When all his plea impassioned she had heard,  
The knight at last fell prostrate at her feet.  
For a spell she sat in silence quite complete,  
Even the airy voices stopped. And then she crew,  
“O Aeolus, bring me my clarions two!  
The golden trumpet that brings sweet acclaim,  
With awe setting Earth’s corners four aflame;  
The second trumpet, rank in tarnished brass,  
That from its evil sound will come to pass  
Evil renown, vile stories on the tongues  
Of all; making of thee the villain of all songs.”  
“O, my sweet Lady Fame!” cried then the knight,  
“I beg of you, the gold horn on the right  
Fill with my name, and all my glorious deeds—  
Cast down the sinister, and intercede  
For me before your fickle sister Fortune—”’

The poet was momentarily interrupted by a murmur rippling round the room: Lancelot thought he heard the word ‘blasphemy’. Well, it was indeed a perversion of the Madonna’s role, interceding on the poor praying mortal’s behalf, petitioning her Son. The atmosphere was charged now with a potent combination of distrust, fascination, fear, scepticism, belief, and, perhaps most of all—and that most clearly represented in Gawain’s eyes, which Lancelot saw with the feeling of a punch to the gut—sheer _desire_.

Did the poet smirk a little at the reaction he had caused? At any rate, unabated, he went on:

‘“There is an option third,” the Lady said,  
“Where I decree that neither clarion dread  
Shall feel the breath from Aeolus’s lips,  
And any fame of thine shall be eclipsed,  
Eternally, and thou shalt leave this place  
An even more unknown, forgotten face  
Than entered thou.” Then wickedly she laughed,  
And to the flagstones both the clarions dashed,  
Screaming a deafening discordant sound  
That sent a shiver and great cracks around  
The glassy palace, ceiling, floor, and wall,  
And fragments of all sizes ’gan to fall,  
And then the ground beneath him rent and roared,  
And then—he woke against the headboard.  
The knight, he found himself waking in bed.  
So all of that had been but in his head!  
He knew not whether he should laugh or weep.  
He stretched his arms to rid himself of sleep,  
And, doing so, he brushed against his hair—  
But what was that that he felt lodgèd there?  
’Twas cold, and smooth, and—oh, ’twas sharp!—alas!—  
It was a little shard of broken glass  
That shone faintly in an uncertain hue,  
And when he raised it upwards, found he too  
That it sang with an eerie inner voice;  
_It sang his name_ —oh, tantalising noise!  
And so it had not been a dream at all!  
And now the knight y-found himself in thrall  
To that small fragment in his shaking hand.  
So he resolved to wander ’cross the land  
That he might find again the House of Fame,  
Might find the golden horn and cry his name  
To ripple through the countless-voice-filled sky,  
Might grasp at last the glory he had been  
Upon the cusp of clutching in his dream…’

The poet stopped. At this strange ending, the room was left intoxicated. Unexpectedly, and somewhat to Lancelot’s horror, Gawain spoke up. ‘Well? Did the knight find the House of Fame again?’

Lancelot watched, unreasonably furious, as the poet eyed as much of Gawain as he could see behind the table. The poet smiled. ‘We have just heard his tale, have we not?’ Another murmur. Was he joking? Or was all this serious? There was something about his manner that suggested that whatever was going on, it was not simply light-hearted entertainment.

‘And now,’ said the poet, turning to Arthur, ‘my request, as promised.’ He opened a small leather pouch at his side, fascinatingly decorated like all the rest of his accoutrements, and drew a small something from it. He held it up to the torchlight—it glinted brilliantly, dazzlingly, whilst also glowing from within with a light that shifted softly but continuously, each colour gone before it could be recognised. A mere gimmick was that, though, compared to its other quality, which now caused shouting from all parts of the Round Table, the clatter of chalices dropped in alarm: Lancelot’s ears were filled with the sound of his own name, uttered by a hundred voices, no, by one, no, by more, more—all saying it in tones of reverence, of blasphemous veneration. But Lancelot, after the initial shock, realised that it was not just saying _his_ name: rather, to him it was, but everyone else could clearly hear their own names, a realisation Lancelot watched spread around the table. ‘Ye can surely be under no doubt,’ said the poet, his voice cutting through the noise but not stopping it, ‘as to what I hold, nor from whence it came.’

‘It’s not merely a story,’ said Gawain, looking at the poet and his shard of glass in consternation.

‘“ _Merely_ a story”—my,’ repeated the poet, shaking his head. ‘Ye would be wise not to underestimate “mere” stories, fair knight,’ Lancelot gritted his teeth despite himself, ‘as ye soon shall find. My Lord,’ the poet addressed Arthur again, ‘I ask that your finest knights—they who most seek the boon of Fame—accompany me to the fabled House, the palace of glass, to seek the Lady’s blessings for me, for them, and, indeed, for you. That is my request. Ye see that it is, in fact, rather another gift to you—should, of course, the Lady smile upon us.’

For a moment there was another stunned silence, as these revelations were processed. Then the room erupted with clamours of knights, even of squires, desperate for a chance to make their plea to Fame. Lancelot, however, did not open his mouth. He looked at Gawain—he was shouting with the rest of them. He looked, rather frantically now, to Guinevere, and was relieved to find her looking back at him with concern visibly equal to his own.

‘Quiet!’ yelled Arthur, rapping on the table, ‘Quiet, all of you!’ Somewhat unwillingly, they obeyed. ‘Good poet,' he said, steadily, so everyone was forced to show some restraint, 'I thank you for this request, so generous in its implications. We will of course help you, as indeed we are bound to do even if it pleased us less. You have seen my knights’ enthusiasm. Yet, alas, it is clear that not everyone may go. So—I elect the following to accompany you.’

The whole Round Table held its collective breath.

‘Sir Gawain.’ Lancelot felt the floor of his stomach fall out. 'Are you willing?’ Gawain was just beginning to reply when Lancelot, unable to stop himself, cried out something unintelligible. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise. He was trying and failing to come up with a way of explaining away his outburst, when Guinevere, thank God and Maria and all the Saints, stepped in.

‘My husband, may I make one suggestion?' At the sound of her voice, everyone seemed to forget their fascination with Lancelot, staring as one at Guinevere instead. 'I believe that it would be wise to select _two_ knights in this endeavour—to give our good poet the greatest chance of his wish being fulfilled, and safely, as it is our duty and our desire to do.’

Everyone looked at her and Arthur in expectation.

‘Wise words as ever, my dear wife,’ said Arthur, and Lancelot saw Guinevere give a barely-there sigh of relief. Suddenly her gaze locked onto Lancelot’s. ‘Brave Sir Lancelot, would you accompany our good poet and Sir Gawain to the House of Fame?’

Lancelot was filled with immense gratitude for the woman who, he was again reminded, was clearly the most sensible, not to mention longsuffering, resident of Camelot. ‘My Queen, I would be honoured,’ said Lancelot, bowing his head to Guinevere, then turning first to Gawain, who, to Lancelot’s annoyance, was still fixated on the poet, and then to the poet himself, who looked back at Lancelot with an expression at first unreadable, that quickly resolved back into that ubiquitous smile.

‘Excellent,’ said the poet. ‘Then we will leave with the birth of tomorrow’s sun.’

*

Lancelot lay in bed unable to sleep. A host of troubling thoughts kept parading, in alternation, through his restless mind. Firstly: that the poet was not whom he said he was, which, Lancelot realised with fresh horror every few minutes, meant little anyway when the poet had never given even a name and no one, apparently, had felt it worthwhile to ask. Secondly: that Gawain had been taken in by the poet, that he and all the rest of them, Lancelot and Guinevere the sole exceptions, were in thrall to some very literal enchantment, and stumbling along blindly to his evil tune, which Lancelot would, somehow, in a feat of knighthood to rival any of his greatest and most desperate, have to thwart. Thirdly: that Gawain was in love with the poet; that right this moment the poet was in his chambers and that they were— Fourthly: that he, Lancelot, was in fact wholly addled in the brain.

After this fourth suggestion, presented, like all such midnight worries, less as a suggestion than as cold, hard, bloody, and incontrovertible _fact_ , he would then start thinking, very gravely, that he was surely love-sick and would certainly die of it. _Amor heroes_. He had read all about it once, in authoritative detail with the kind of graphic illustrations that are wont to reappear before one’s eyes at such distressing moments, in some physick’s manuscript he’d come across Lord knew where. He remembered the signs. Blanched skin, for a start. He got up and looked in his little glass and, yes, blanched i’sooth, unless it was the moonlight, which seemed unlikely. Shivering, uncontrollable. Well yes—when any of those horrible thoughts concerning Gawain occurred to him, he found himself shivering. What else? Fixation, wherein all responsibilities not connected to one’s Lady—or, well, language failed him here. One’s Lord? indeed no, that was not right. One’s lief? One’s sweet? One’s dear? Lo, one’s friend? He abandoned the lexical effort. So—constantly thinking about them, to the neglect of other charges. Well, Lancelot was privileged, if privilege it was, in that by default his duties were all, in a sense, connected to Gawain. At least Guinevere had managed to arrange for him to go with him on the quest. Regardless: he appeared to be suffering from that one too. Oh, and finally: sleeplessness, one’s rest thieved by Cupido, perhaps keeping the eyes of the love-sick one open out of spite for his own blindness. Well, it was by now the small hours, and look at him.

So the next stage would soon be upon him, were it not already. _Melancholia_. A kind of despair, or strange deflation, another and severer disease of the brain. Some said it was the lodgement of demon spirits in the soul, or at any rate that it opened up the soul to such unwelcome visitors. Some even said that, since it equated to despair in the Almighty, it was in fact a mortal sin. These were ghastly thoughts. And from there, madness, real out-and-out madness, and then, in the worst cases, death itself. All very much like the ordinary, deadly fever emulated by the signs, but if it _were_ a mortal sin, all the worse.

Lancelot turned over again, scrabbling with the blankets, which kept making him first too hot then too cold. That, he thought with a sigh, was another sign. And so was sighing.

 _Amor heroes_ , the love of heroes, that’s how he’d heard it translated. Was the great Sir Lancelot du Lac truly ill with love-sickness, and, at that, for another knight? Is that how he would die—not by the sword of cold steel, but by the burning one, intoxicating, lovely in its pain—so the poet fellow would probably put it, Devil take his soul. 

Or, firstly, was the poet not whom he said he was? And, secondly, did he have everyone under a spell? And, thirdly, was Gawain in love—

Eventually, exhausted, Lancelot fell asleep.

*

He must have fallen asleep, if only because he certainly awoke to the sound of something like hammering on his door and Gawain calling, ‘Wakey-wakey, Lancelot, our weird poet fellow awaits!’

What restraint it took not to call back that the poet could hang, that he just wanted to spend the day alone with Gawain, please, a Gawain who if he didn't love Lancelot, at least didn't prefer some stranger with a harp and a funny stick. Well, the latter part did not take restraint: he would not have voiced it even on the rack. Still, instead of any of that, Lancelot heaved a great sigh, told Gawain he was coming, dressed, breakfasted, said Mass, was armed, and the three of them left Camelot, as promised, with the sunrise.

The snow remained thick on the ground, giving everywhere that unfamiliar quality of which otherwise only night-time was capable. Twelve hooves crunched through it. Lancelot wrapped his furs tighter around himself.

‘Do you know,’ said Lancelot after a while, ‘where you’re going, or must we merely _wander_ like the unfortunate knight in the poem?’ The second part slipped out unbidden. Lancelot did not expect such boldness, even rudeness, from himself, but he pretended to be brazen. The poet, however, hardly reacted, and Lancelot was surprised to find that this rankled with him even more. If he had reacted, it might have felt a bit like he'd hit him, and at this point Lancelot was dying to hit him.

‘I’ve a good idea. I know well the stories—for there are many—how they map the land. It will take about a day.’ Lancelot could not really grumble about only a day’s travel, and that annoyed him too.

They cantered in silence for a while. On the one hand it was painfully awkward; on the other, Lancelot had no desire to speak to the poet, did not want to speak to Gawain in the poet’s presence—with his all-seeing, beady little eyes—and was also very glad that the poet was not speaking to Gawain, so he sat with it.

But eventually the poet did speak up. ‘Seek ye fame, then, fair knight?’ He said it to Gawain, since Lancelot was lagging slightly behind, and at his reuse of the adjective ‘fair’, the poet was extremely lucky that Lancelot did not simply stab him outright and deal with the consequences later. He nudged forward his horse to be able to see them both better.

Gawain’s head turned rather suddenly to the side. ‘I do. I am a Knight of the Round Table.’ Was that as guarded a response as Lancelot hoped?

‘Of course,’ said the poet. ‘Indeed, Camelot has such fame, it is rather difficult to imagine more. But there is, naturally, the opportunity for individual glory.’

‘Is that what _you_ seek?’ asked Gawain, with, Thomas of Kent, was that a flirtatious smile? Lancelot forced himself to properly scrutinise the poet, just for as brief a spell as might be subtle. Today he was definitely young—well, about the age of him and Gawain, anyway; not _old_ , that was all that could be said for certain, and in fairness even that was more than he could be confident of the other night. Perhaps, said a little wise voice in the back of his mind, it had been merely an illusion of the torchlight. (And jealousy, it added in a whisper, and Lancelot’s knuckles went white clutching the reins.) Not only was he quite young, he was, Lancelot noted and forced himself not to react, frustratingly handsome. Dark hair, perfectly but effortlessly waved. Jawline tragic in its faultless craftsmanship. _Et cetera_ , thought Lancelot grimly, unable to look any more.

Of course Gawain would have a go, then, even if he didn’t usually. And a lone traveller, no possibility of embarrassment, at least not for unbearably long. (Well, any embarrassment, especially in this arena, was unbearably long for Lancelot, but Gawain was not bothered by such trivialities.) Well, fair enough. Perhaps it _was_ all jealousy. If Gawain fancied the poet, who was Lancelot to intervene?

‘Individual glory—well, I suppose ye could say that.’

No—it could not be just jealousy. There was that all-too-suspicious reticence again. Distrust surged through Lancelot once more.

‘Could?’ said Gawain.

‘A poet wants his songs to live,’ he said solemnly. ‘He wants control of his stories. He wants them to be known by all, his characters and their actions to be immortal, even if their creator is not. Perhaps he even wants them to become crystallised into myth, eternal, unassailable, woven into the very fabric of the mind of every man. Is that individual glory? Perhaps.’

Crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch. ‘I see,’ said Gawain. ‘And we,’ he looked at Lancelot with a grin that could have melted the snow, ‘I suppose, _are_ the characters, in a sense?’

That face again from the poet. And for half a second, to Lancelot, he looked old again—or did he? Upon a second glance, the Devil take him, he was young and fair again.

‘My tales,’ said the poet steadily, ‘are of kings and wizards. They are of magic and misery and miracles. They are of great and terrible landscapes, the bodies of the tales, in turn rent by the tales, transformed by the characters, creating, and branded by, their experiences.’

Lancelot had the vaguest sense, from this cryptic response, that some offence had been caused. Gawain apparently did not. ‘They do sound rather exciting. I hope Fame grants you her blessing,’ he added.

The poet gave Gawain what felt like a long look. Lancelot saw him shift slightly in his saddle, and was not sure what to make of it. ‘We shall see,’ smiled the poet. ‘And Lancelot, what of you? Is it all for fame?’

Oh no. Lie, Lancelot, lie, lie, lie—

‘I suppose so,’ he said after too much of a pause. Weak. About as convincing as Gawain’s Gringolet impression. ‘Yes,’ he continued, trying to bolster it, knowing he was digging, ‘fame, really. The fame of Camelot—’

‘Not of Sir Lancelot?’ the poet interrupted.

‘Oh—well—him too,’ Lancelot tried to laugh.

‘One and the same?’ pressed the poet, and _mon Dieu_ , how Lancelot was coming to hate the fellow, if only he could knock him from his horse right that moment and be done with it, or better still chop his pretty bardic head from his pretty bardic body, he’d like to see him write a poem about that. He managed to only grit his teeth. ‘That is the way of knighthood.’

‘Oh? I thought the way of knighthood was to fight for one’s lief lady.’ He said it very matter-of-factly, but it stopped up Lancelot’s chest and throat and mind in an instant. Did he suspect? Was Lancelot merely terrified that he might?

‘I—’ Lancelot stammered. He must have tensed because his horse, feeling pressure from his heels, suddenly shot forward a yard or two before he calmed it again.

Gawain, thank Heaven, stepped in. ‘Knighthood is complex, good poet. It has many facets. Many motivations and intricate rules. It has its own meanings for each of us.’ He cast Lancelot a sympathetic look, full of concern but also, unmistakably, coloured with just a hint of curiosity. This overwhelmed him yet more, but partly, now, with sweeter emotions.

‘Indeed?’ said the poet, studying them both.

*

For the rest of the day, until dusk was beginning to think about falling, their journey was uneventful. Lancelot did not speak unless spoken to, which was rarely, and in the meantime he tried to ignore any conversation between Gawain and the poet by gazing at his surroundings as they changed around him.

During the daytime, it was remarkable, despite the season, despite even the snow, how much colour there was, once you stopped to notice. The evergreens were, of course, green, but a very dark, rich green: a very different green to the green that peeked through the snow (scrappy as it was, once they were a while away from Camelot, in an area sheltered by an enormous forest), which was much lighter, luminous like stained glass. The leafless trees proved to be, at least from a distance, closer to an ochre colour, lined with the occasional needle-thin white of a birch. The smaller shrubs, also leafless, were a surprising sort of purple with it, a fuzzy purple, like the ochre, that disappeared and became brown up close, when every twig was individually visible. And they all grew up out of bracken which was the colour of rust—speckled, here and there, with surviving patches of snow.

As night fell, the sky becoming a dark grey-blue, a mist fell with it, doing strange things to the landscape and to the large moon. For a while the distant mountains, and the immense masses of trees before them, were silhouetted. 

‘We should rest soon,’ said Gawain at this point. 

‘In the next valley there is an inn. We will stop there.’ How on earth the poet knew this with such surety neither of them asked. Lancelot, however, had not stopped feeling unnerved since earlier, so this addition, graciously, had little effect upon him. 

There was indeed an inn—a strange little place, scarcely distinguishable from the grey mountain face behind it. It was not, Lancelot had to admit, nearly as forbidding as he had expected. It was definitely a bit odd, in a mostly indefinable way, but apart from that it was really rather inviting, especially after a long day’s journey. They entered through a little wooden door, wholly irregularly shaped. It was like the builders had remembered only as an afterthought that a building needed a door, had fortunately also forgotten to fill with bricks an approximately door-sized, though not door- _shaped_ , hole in the wall, and had then even more fortunately managed to find a piece of wood that inexplicably fit it.

Actually, thought Lancelot, this was a bit weird after all.

_**Explicit Liber Secundus** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Iwis' is a common medieval word that basically means 'indeed', 'certainly'.
> 
> The poet's story is based on Chaucer's wonderful weird long dream-narrative poem 'The House of Fame' -- rather loosely. Likewise, the description of love-sickness (which was indeed taken very seriously by medieval medical authorities, considered a 'disease of the brain') is based on Troilus' symptoms in his 'Troilus and Criseyde' -- and that brilliant bit near the end of Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose', when Adso finds a book that talks about love-sickness and momentarily convinces himself he's ill with it.


	3. Liber Tertius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lancelot, Gawain, and the poet stop at a slightly strange inn ready for their House of Fame quest the next morning. Lancelot get a very brief moment of alone time with Gawain before all hell breaks loose.

**Incipit Liber Tertius**

It was only when he entered the inn that he realised quite how chilled he had become. A great hearth on one side of the room cast out a roaring warmth that felt tremendous on his bitterly cold face, almost hurting with the sudden change in temperature. The snow whirling increasingly wildly outside the little leaded windows made the inn yet homelier in contrast. 

‘Swounds, what a relief to be finally in the warm!’ Gawain flung himself onto a bench by the fire, yanking off his gloves and holding up his hands to the blaze. ‘Lancelot, you look freezing, come over here at once!’ He threw a cushion at him, which Lancelot, unblinkingly, caught left-handed, and hurled back again. Not expecting this, Gawain only just about caught it before it collided with his face. ‘This was for you!’ he said plaintively.

‘Sorry,’ said Lancelot, who had not realised what he was doing until he had done it. ‘It was instinctive. You know what it’s like.’

Gawain gave a genuine laugh, causing Lancelot to smile, and his heart, like his body in the hearth-heat, to begin to thaw.

‘I shall go and find the innkeeper,’ said the poet, gesturing with his staff at the empty desk which Lancelot only now saw. Gawain thanked him, and, after a slightly extended stare at them both, the poet nodded, and went off into some back room. Lancelot felt the tension drain from his body. Finally he was gone! 

‘Lancelot, sit down, we’ve been travelling all day. Come and relax a wee bit.’ Lancelot did as he was told, taking a seat at the other end of Gawain’s bench. ‘What’re you doing all the way over there? Come here, else you’ll carry on shivering all night.’ Gawain patted the space right beside him. Lancelot was, in fact, quite sure that he warmed up at least tenfold just upon hearing Gawain say those caring words, and seeing the light in his eyes, and imagining sitting that close to him. It was not, of course, that they would never have been so close before—in battle; in the heated moments before and after battle; on certain quests; and every now and then when Gawain had, in true Orkney fashion, imbibed a bit too much ale at a feast and become friendly with anyone who was not Sir Kay—but never since Lancelot had been struck by that string of troubling and very potent realisations that now consumed his every waking hour, and indeed many of his sleeping ones to boot.

‘Are you well, Lancelot?’ asked Gawain, when he still hadn’t moved. Lancelot managed a feeble ‘Yes,’ and, summoning the kind of courage he usually reserved for fighting monsters, forced himself to shift to the other end of the bench. He found himself flush against Gawain’s side, shoulder to thigh, and trying desperately not to shake even more. Some words from he-remembered-not-where drifted through his mind: _A sword-blow is cured and heals very quickly once a doctor attends to it: Love’s wound, though, grows worse the nearer it is to its doctor._ He put his hands tightly together in his lap. ‘That’s better,’ said Gawain, and, Saint Mary, put his arm around him, with that incredible nonchalance with which Gawain seemed to do most things in life, but of which Lancelot was capable only while he was slaying legions of men. ‘’Swounds,’ said Gawain again. Lancelot vaguely hoped that Christ was not listening. ‘Bloody cold, isn’t it?’

‘Not anymore,’ mumbled Lancelot. Gawain glanced at him and then back to the fire.

‘Aye, glad we’re inside at long last. Tell you what, I hope it’s worth it, this House of Fame.’

Lancelot had no chance to reply, for at that moment the poet returned. He looked at the two of them for a second, and Lancelot’s heart-rate spiked again. This sort of peculiar scrutiny, however, seemed to be the poet’s wont (perhaps it was part of the business), so he told himself to try to think nothing of it—and maybe in doing so give nothing away. And it was only for a second or two: he crossed the room, his cloak, still covered in a menagerie of furs, sweeping widely behind him, and came to stand before the hearth, studying the window to their right. ‘The innkeeper has said we may take these rooms’—he pointed his staff, without looking, at three consecutive doors along the far wall that Lancelot, in his distraction, had not noticed until then—‘and pay when we leave, which I will fund. And then we can set off again first thing in the morning.’

‘Wait a moment,’ said Lancelot, ‘did you not say it would be only a day’s travel?’

He was honoured with a brief glance from the poet. ‘We are very nearby now. It is on our doorstep—as they say.’

‘I didn’t see any sign of it,’ said Gawain.

‘It is not so readily visible. Fear ye not,’ he turned to face them both, his back to the fire. It illuminated him in a way that reminded Lancelot, no doubt in his prejudice, of those images of flame-licked demons they hung in churches as a warning to the illiterate. And, for that matter, to the literate. ‘I know,’ continued the poet, ‘how to gain entrance to the House of Fame, with the assistance of your knightly prowess. It shall be a mere breeze. Once we are there, it shall depend upon the caprices of the Lady Fame—we can but attempt to persuade her in our favour. And tonight,’ he crossed the room again until he held the handle of the middle door, ‘we can but rest. I will see you with the rising sun.’ He bowed, and disappeared through the door.

So now Lancelot was just sitting there, before the fire, warm against Gawain’s side, Gawain’s arm around him. He kept reminding himself that it was only Gawain being friendly. Had he known the whirlwind currently raging in Lancelot’s mind, madder than the snowstorm outside, he might have kept him at the other end of the bench. Lancelot sighed. 

‘Do you still not trust the poet?’ asked Gawain under his breath.

Lancelot frowned. ‘I can’t say that I do. But…’ he chewed his lip for a moment. ‘But I may be prejudiced.’

He felt Gawain glance at him, but resolutely avoided his eyes by continuing to stare at the fire until pink shapes appeared in his vision. ‘Oh?’ said Gawain. But Lancelot was not forthcoming. ‘Lancelot,’ Gawain shifted in his seat so he was side-on, facing him fully. Lancelot still did not look. ‘Lancelot, forgive me if I am prying… but I suspect that there is something you are not telling me. Not that you’re expected to tell me, well, anything. But—oh, I’m probably making a fool of myself, but I’ve been worried about you, i’sooth.’ And then for a second Lancelot forgot how to breathe, because Gawain, as if to accent his words, very gently brushed a stray lock of hair from Lancelot’s eyes. 

Lancelot opened his mouth, without managing to speak. So he knew—or, he did not know, but he suspected… something. How much? And what exactly? Lancelot had no idea, though his imagination was racing, presenting him with thought after thought in overlapping succession, like flipping through the pages of a thick book. If he did suspect that he was in love with him, then perhaps Lancelot really should confess—but, oh, he could not suspect that, surely! And for that matter, Lancelot, certainly, could not confess, no, on no grounds at all. He closed his speechless mouth again. And then he managed to open it once more and whisper, ‘Gawain, just—be careful tomorrow. Please.’ For a second he looked into Gawain’s eyes, and found there a glimmer of soft surprise. 

‘Well,’ said Gawain, in a voice so small it almost cracked, ‘not really my _forté_ , being careful.’ He gave a brief wry smile, quickly gone again. ‘But—I’ll try.’ He hesitated for a moment. He looked like he wanted to say, or rather to ask, more, but either wasn’t sure what, or how, or perhaps both, and so he remained silent. Instead, he suddenly pulled Lancelot into his arms. He held him tightly, securely, safely: Lancelot could feel his warrior strength, used, somehow, with remarkable tenderness, and it all but overwhelmed him. For a moment his world was filled with the fragrance of leather, of the pomander of musk and civet buttoning his cloak, of whatever made his hair look so soft and intoxicating. Finally, he was in the arms of the man he loved! Oh, to stay there forever!

But it was over all too soon. Gawain drew back again and stood up, patting him on the shoulder in that definitely friendly way that once again deflated Lancelot completely. ‘Right, I’m off to bed. Fame awaits with the dawn!’

He crossed the room. Oh, how desperately Lancelot wanted to stop him, to grab his hand, to tell him, to beg him not to leave, as though if he stayed there beside him all night the morrow would never come and nor, with it, would the dreaded House of Fame. 

But he merely said, ‘goodnight, Gawain.’

*

Lancelot had lay in restless worry again for some time, ill at ease in his borrowed bed, before, overcome by tiredness, he began at last to drift into sleep.

At that moment there was a yell of fear from a different part of the inn. And again—louder this time—it was Gawain, crying for help, or in warning, or something—Lancelot tried to spring up, but found his whole body heavy, terrifyingly heavy, not so much like he was under weights as _full_ of weight. And he could see the room around him, yet somehow he sensed that his eyes were shut—everything was a bit _off_ , there was a slight darkness, or fuzziness, to everything—and if his eyes really _were_ shut, then he was also unable to open them. He tried to shout back, and perhaps he managed to open his mouth, but his vocal chords refused to engage, his lungs were working madly and yet they too betrayed him, refusing to supply the air. The harder he tried to do anything at all, in fact, the darker and fuzzier grew the room, the more consciousness slipped from his frantic grasp. At last he just about managed to say—it could not have been louder than that—Gawain’s name, before being consumed by a total, desolate nothingness.

He could not possibly tell for how long he had been unconscious when he awoke, but he quickly realised that he was lying face-down on flagstones. Very hard, very smooth. Very, very cold. And increasingly damp. Not stone: ice. He stood up with a start—relieved, despite all his other reasons for alarm, to find that now he could, at least, move. He shivered in the absence of his furs, his padding—in the absence, he realised in horror, of his armour. But he steeled himself; it would not be the first time (thinking vaguely of something to do with a tree and a damsel) he had been so defenceless and had nonetheless survived, so he could do it again. Hopefully. 

Shoving his hands in his pockets—at least he was not completely bare—he took a few steps, looking around. He was in a gigantic room, extraordinarily wide and extraordinarily tall, rather like a cathedral, yet even more palatial. It was full of colour—but rather pale, and in constant flux, shifting continuously as he moved. This was disorienting enough, but far more so was that everything was reflected in everything else, so it was only with great difficulty that substance could be told from shadow, on top of which everything was impossibly, endlessly multiple, and frequently distorted. 

By now he had gathered, of course, where he was, or at least where he thought he was. He was also quite sure that he was dreaming. What concerned him more was that he was not certain that the fact that he was dreaming made it any less _real_. And if it _were_ real, then he had cause to worry not just about himself—and indeed, self-preservation was never terribly high on his agenda—but also about…

No, no he could not finish that thought. He took a deep breath, and pretended he had his armour on. Then he set to walking forward, determinedly and at a pace. He hoped that by just picking one direction, he would firstly stand less chance of getting lost—whatever that might mean in a place he had entered he knew not how or whence—and secondly stop himself from going round in circles. Each of these relied on many assumptions that, particularly in the absence of any obvious alternative, he dared not analyse. So he walked. 

It felt like a long time before the scenery started to change at all. When it did, he initially thought that there were people approaching; he went to draw his sword, found it absent, so simply had to carry on walking without it. As he drew nearer, however, it became apparent that they were not people after all, but statues: a colonnade, on either side of what did in fact seem to be a corridor, of tall white statues, in antique drapery. Some, from their inscriptions, he recognised: VIRGILIVS, said one; OVIDIVS, another. But as he continued to walk, the figures, not to mention their attire, became unfamiliar. He glanced at a few of them: GALFRIDVS MONEMVNTENSIS. WACE. LAȝAMON. CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES. MARIE DE FRANCE. WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH. SYR THOMAS MALORY. 

After a while, for reasons he could not put his finger on, they began to unnerve him, so he hurried on, breaking now into a jog. At last, he came upon two colossal doors, taller than he had ever seen in his life. In their simple difference of colour to everything else—a beautiful, if threatening, dark wood, overlaid with intricate swirling metalwork in quatrefoil-like shapes—they momentarily caused Lancelot, who had become almost used to the ubiquitous ice, some surprise. He remembered them from the poem: the knight, he recalled, had simply walked up to them and they had opened to him. So Lancelot continued to approach, with some reverence. His footsteps echoed, growing louder and crisper the closer he came. At a certain point, when it seemed that if he stood any nearer, he would be swept aside by their opening, the doors began to creak. 

As they opened, the space filled with sound, flooding it, as if with water, from floor to impossible rafters. It sounded like a million voices all talking to each other, or maybe to themselves, or maybe even all to him. And, just like with the shard of glass—or, apparently, ice—held by the poet back in Camelot, every single voice was saying Lancelot’s name, over and over and over again, in awe, in tones which could not help but fill his stomach with a kind of fluttery warmth which he nonetheless did not much like; ‘Lancelot, Lancelot, oh, Lancelot,’ they cooed, louder and louder as the doors swung wider and wider, and Lancelot, almost in a trance, entered the room. 

This room, somehow, was vaster still, matching, as the poet had described, the towering grandeur of the doors. This though he hardly noticed, in the face of both the continuing, highly distracting clamour, and, yet more strikingly, the throne before him: and its occupant. 

She lounged on her throne with the air of a lion that had made short and bloody work of a poor deer, and was now leisurely picking from its immaculate teeth a morsel of the animal’s flesh, while eyeing up dessert. Indeed if anything, such a description was libellous to the lion. What the poet had neglected to mention in his song, and that which now quite transfixed Lancelot, was that the Lady Fame was not just some giant woman on a fancy chair, which, in fairness, could have been frightening enough. Her face was covered in eyes. Dozens and dozens of them, like the Argus of myth. At Lancelot’s entrance, they had ceased their multidirectional roving and had all come to focus, minutely, upon him; he could feel their hundred beams all resting on him, tracking his every breath, his muscles’ every twitch. ‘The great Sir Lancelot du Lac,’ she intoned, very slowly, as if enjoying the taste of every word. All the other voices suddenly stopped. Lancelot was not sure which was worse. ‘This _is_ an honour indeed.’

Lancelot shifted uncomfortably. He felt horribly, horribly exposed, defenceless. He set his jaw. 

‘Oh, my fair one, fear thou not. Come closer, let me take a better look at thee—fair, O fair as thou art.’ Lancelot wanted to do nothing less, yet by some force—perhaps just by those eyes, in their horrible proliferation—he was impelled forward. She swung her titanic legs from where they lolled over the arm of her throne so that she was sitting in it properly, and thus could lean down to inspect him. She propped her elbow on her knee, her chin in her hand. Several eyes peeped through her fingers. ‘My, thou _art_ fair, iwis.’

‘Fair! Fair!’ cried the sky full of voices, unexpectedly. Lancelot tried very hard to look away, and found himself unable to. ‘Seekest thou fame, fair Sir Lancelot?’ 

‘I already have it,’ he said.

‘Aye, true enough,’ she nodded. ‘But fame has no limit. One can always be greater.’

‘Fame and greatness are not the same.’

‘People are great because others think them great. There can be no greatness without fame.’

‘You talk sweetly, m’Lady, but falsely. I desire not fame.’

The Lady’s many eyes studied him for an unpleasant moment. Then she said, ‘Perhaps ’tis true thou desirest not fame. But thou _dost_ desire... something _else_ , dostow not?’ She gave a smile like a volley of arrows. 

Lancelot’s throat dried up. 

Toying, she gazed at him for a moment. Then she continued, with awful, palpable enthusiasm. ‘ _Thou_ mayst not desire fame, Lancelot, but the rest of the Round Table certainly does: like the good knights they are. Aeolus!’

Suddenly Lancelot felt himself being caught from behind, by hands far stronger than his own—nay, were they hands? or ropes? He could see no one—it was some invisible force—he struggled against it, fruitlessly. Supernatural, then. He tried to shout—and could not even do that. He was pulled, through the air, to Fame’s feet, thrown to the floor, and left there immobile, voiceless, with no choice but to stare at the space before him, the space in which he had just been standing. 

And so he could but watch in horror as the great doors opened again, and in was flung—Gawain. Lancelot’s lungs contorted with the futile effort of crying his name. He barely released a breath. Gawain’s skin was ghastly white; he looked thin, like he had lost his muscle; the lustre had vanished from his so-soft auburn hair. Worst of all: those beautiful eyes that Lancelot loved so much, usually full of the green of emeralds, of the green of spring—they were dull, sunken, empty of light, empty almost, sweet Mary, even of _life_. What had she done to him! He tried again to cry his name, to run to him, Jesu, to do anything at all, but could not, could not, could not…!

‘Come, servant!’ cried Fame, and Gawain walked forward, processional, hieratic. Lancelot’s flesh crawled at the sight. ‘My dear Sir Gawain: Slave to Fame. Like a good knight should be. How very strange, Sir Lancelot, thou the greatest of knights,’ she turned to him, where he quaked, like a hunted animal, on the ground, ‘the _perfect_ knight, iwis—yet not motivated, like the others, by fame. So what _is_ thy motivation, I wonder?’ 

She shook her head. ‘Since thou hast mocked me, I shall discover it. Thou wouldst have done well to remember that fame has many meanings, fair Lancelot. Vast is mine empire: thine Arthur can but dream of such a sprawling kingdom. Remember that I control more than merely how many people know one’s name, how widely people fear one’s coat of arms. I control what they _think_ when they hear the name, when they see the coat of arms. What would fill a man’s head,’ she enunciated, leaning down close enough for him to make out the capillaries in her many, many eyes, ‘should I whisper in his ear, " _Lancelot?"'_

With a horrible laugh, in which she was joined by the sudden reappearance of the thousand disembodied voices, like a reacting audience, she drew back again. ‘It is I who writes thy stories in the minds of men, Lancelot! Let us see what happens when thou bowest not down, like thy good friend Sir Gawain, to the all-powerful Lady Fame…’

**Explicit Liber Tertius**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote that drifts vaguely through Lancelot's mind as he sits next to Gawain is from Chretien de Troyes' Yvain, actually, which just made me smile. I'm afraid I can't remember who was the translator. If I find it again I'll update this accordingly.
> 
> Again, the House of Fame is heavily based on Chaucer but I've felt absolutely free to deviate when and wherever because, well, I don't think anyone cares anyway. For a start, his author statues are not, of course, Arthurian authors, partly because he died before half of them were born. 
> 
> The 'beams' of Fame's eyes is a spicy little bit of Medieval physiology; it was a great debate until well into the Renaissance and possible beyond, if I remember rightly, over how eyesight worked, and the consensus in the Middle Ages was that they cast out beams which hit the object you were looking at. It's also a perversion of the Medieval & Renaissance trope (possibly even belief) of love materialising through the beams of the lady's eyes meeting one's own, in which are contained Love's darts. Chaucer uses it, as do Boccaccio, Shakespeare, etc.


	4. Liber Quartus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fame shows Lancelot the stories about himself that will most horrify him. Can his love for Gawain be enough to break free?

**Incipit Liber Quartus**

‘My clarions!’ cried Fame. Immediately Gawain retrieved, from somewhere behind her throne invisible to Lancelot, two strange, huge trumpets. One gleamed gold, very delicately engraved with fine interlocking swirls and quatrefoils. The other was rusted and foul, somehow giving the impression of a rotten old bone. Gawain knelt at Fame’s feet, holding them, with effort, above his head. She plucked them from his hands. ‘Let us see how the great Lancelot may be known, many, many ages hence, upon my command. If it be that fame mattereth not most to Sir Lancelot, perhaps this exercise shall reveal what _doth_.’

She grinned, and held up both trumpets. The disembodied voices flooded to fill them—so it seemed, for the room resounded once more with deafening discordant noise, awful to hear. Lancelot was desperate to cover his ears but still could not move. The sound became so loud that his head felt like it was splitting open, and all of a sudden his vision, and then his hearing, failed.

And then at some point they returned. He blinked, and looked around. He was suddenly overcome with the sense of familiarity, wonderful comforting familiarity: Camelot! He was safe—he was home—he was waking up in his own bed from a very sinister and horribly vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless, and nothing more harmful than that. 

And yet—he did not recognise these bedclothes. These were not his blankets—where had they come from?

This was Camelot, but it was _not_ his bed. Something shifted beside him. He held his breath. It shifted again, the blankets moved, it—no. _She_. He was in bed with a _woman_. Her hair spread in beautiful ringlets across the pillows; she was facing away, but—oh, horror, oh God forgive him—he nonetheless recognised her. Queen Guinevere. He was in bed with Queen Guinevere—in the marriage bed of Guinevere and Arthur!

Feeling filthy—like his own skin was alien and rank, like he wanted to peel it all off and burn it—he tried to spring out of the bed, to flee whatever on Earth had happened—but Guinevere turned over and flung a sleepy, bare arm across his prickling, bare chest, which, he found, was no longer lined with scars. Her arm felt soft, and warm, and smooth, and he’d never thought about it before but it was heavier than he would have expected, and he felt sick. Words he had heard long ago and for a long time resented, but had never, apparently, been able to wholly uproot from his memory, now forced themselves, unbidden, through his mind. _Inter urinas et faeces nascimur._ It was more like he was hearing them said to him, spat at him, than thinking them himself, and try as he did to force them away, like the tide they just kept surging back.

How could he have ended up here? He had never dreamt of this—had never dreamt of anything like this. Guinevere was his _friend_ , and she was _Arthur’s wife_ , and he loved her with immense friendly love, _filia, filia,_ not like this—whatever _this_ was!

He tried again to fling himself out of the bed, with its mortifying rumpled white sheets—but, just like in his dream, he found himself once again unable to move. Guinevere’s arm on his chest felt like a vice around his lungs. His breath came rapid and shallow.

Somehow, he had betrayed Arthur, betrayed the Round Table, betrayed his faith, betrayed himself, betrayed, in a certain sense, this Guinevere beside him—or, not this Guinevere beside him, but the Guinevere he had known and loved for years: Guinevere, _wife of Arthur_ : Guinevere his friend. Yet, amongst it all, he felt he had also betrayed—Gawain. And not just in the sense that he had—his stomach flipped again—betrayed all the members of Camelot in the aggregate. To feel that he had somehow betrayed Gawain with Guinevere in the same way that Guinevere had, apparently—how could he believe it?—betrayed Arthur with _him_ was, he knew, absurd. They were not plighted, the only troth between them was that shared by all the Round Table—God knew, even if Gawain loved Lancelot as Lancelot loved Gawain, which was an almighty ‘if’, such a love between men had no place in the delicate workings of chivalry. It caused a logical problem. It could not exist.

How could something that could not exist hurt so very much?

Guinevere kissed him. Fortunately it was only on the cheek, but it made everything reel again sickeningly. He tried everything not to notice the sweet smell of her room—her hair—her skin—but the rose and jasmine and myrtle were overpowering. His head swam with longing for the scents of leather, musk, soft auburn hair…

Suddenly there was the sound of an approaching tumult. A great mass of raucous, furious voices, crying and bellowing, then people hammering on the door, some possibly with fists but many, audibly, with the butts of weapons. Two words rang repeatedly and with the greatest clarity amongst it all: ‘Lancelot!’ And then, ‘Traitor!’

Again Lancelot tried to get out of bed, aiming now for the window; again he could do nothing of the sort. The uproar now woke Guinevere with a start.

‘Adulterer!’ yelled miscellaneous half-recognised voices. ‘Traitor!’

Lancelot saw all the colour drain from her face—and that reminded him again of Gawain. Gawain in his dream. Gawain who had looked so emaciated, so lifeless, so desperate— _so vivid_ —

There was another bang on the door. ‘Lancelot! Traitor knight! You monster! I’ll kill you—I’ll flay you alive!’

 _Please do._ Somehow Lancelot’s stomach dropped further still. It was Gawain. Unmistakable. And never in his life—for all he had suffered, wounds of the body and mind alike, many and bloody as they had been—had he felt worse than then, hearing such things from him. From the lips he found sweetest of any mortal’s lips. From the man he loved most of anyone in Creation. 

‘Lancelot!’ Gawain yelled again. But—no. Something—besides the obvious, that is—was wrong. Something was off. Something extremely, exquisitely subtle in the voice, some slight tone, or pronunciation, or something. It was possible that Lancelot was the only one in the whole world who would have known that it was off: but he knew. Lancelot had not betrayed Arthur, or the Round Table, or his faith, or himself, or Guinevere, or, praise be to God, his beloved Gawain. He knew it with a certainty for which he would put Camelot itself on the line.

_How dare anyone believe he would not know the real Gawain from a false one._

He got up. The effort was gargantuan and every tendon in his body felt like it was going to snap with it, but certainty, and fury, and above all love so searing that everything else crumbled in comparison made him succeed. He grabbed one of the white sheets and flung it around himself; he was vaguely aware that he must have looked like one of those antique statues. He decided that at the foot of the bed there would be a sword. There was. He took it.

He looked up to the ceiling. _Pater noster_. And then, with all his head and heart filled with Gawain, not whatever demon in Gawain’s shape that may or may not be stood beyond that door, but the real Gawain, the true Gawain, _his_ Gawain…

He opened the door. And his vision went black.

When it returned, he was back, as a creeping little part of him had expected, in the House of Fame. He was not entirely sure which was worse: until he realised that he was still holding the sword.

‘Take it from him!’ shrieked Fame. Brandishing the sword, he turned upon her and saw that she was far less composed than she had been earlier. ‘Take it from him!’ she shrieked again. Invisible forces gripped him again; he felt them clutching at the sword; but this time, with his renewed strength of body and soul, he was able to resist. He gave it a tremendous pull and staggered a little as the bodiless assailants suddenly shot off, defeated. Baring his teeth he raised the sword towards her. He was yet to figure out quite how he would take down such a titaness—but she would not be the first giant he had slayed.

‘I am no mere _giant_ , Sir Lancelot! I am far, far mightier. I am an idea—an _abstractus_ —and I have the _power_ of ideas. There is nothing more powerful than ideas, Lancelot: certainly not thy little sword. “The dash of a pen is more grievous than the counter use of a lance”—one day someone shall write that. How apt it will be! And now I know what ideas are most important to thee. Now I know what stories though wouldst most hate.’

Her hundred eyes were all bloodshot with rage, and now they creased, horribly, with laughter. ‘The story thou sawest just,’ she hissed, ‘will be told many times, dear little Lancelot; many, many times. How sad for thee that thou shalt be known by all as Sir Lancelot du Lac: the most famous adulterer ever to have lived. Lo, they will forget thou even lived before they will forget the tale of thine adultery with the lovely Queen Guinevere, and how it destroyed Camelot… _le_ _morte d’Arthur_ …’

‘I would never do that!’ cried Lancelot, shaking with anger. ‘You know I would never do that. You know my feelings could not be further from that!’

‘Oh, I know,’ cooed Fame, with a mocking frown. ‘I know. But if I put my lips to this clarion, thou and I shall be the only ones who know—who will _ever_ know.’ She raised the foul clarion.

‘ _No!’_ Lancelot cried, and leapt at her, willing the sword to land, somehow, with impact. It would have, had she not thrust Gawain in the way. Lancelot only just managed to stop himself from running him through; he swung to the side and made a great gorge in the icy floor instead. Suddenly Lancelot was on the defensive: Gawain had acquired a sword from who-knew-where and for all the hollowness of his cheeks, and the lividness of his skin, the flurry of attacks that now fell upon Lancelot made clear that he had lost none of his usual strength. ‘Gawain!’ he cried, barely parrying another stroke, ‘Stop! Please!’ But Gawain made no response. His eyes were dark with bloody-minded concentration, driving attack upon attack upon Lancelot, who could only defend. ‘Gawain! Listen to me—Gawain!’ He just about blocked one that would have taken his head off. ‘Please—I can’t hurt you!’

‘Thou canst not hurt _him_ , Lancelot,’ grinned Fame, ‘but my Gawain, I assume thee, is fettered by no such scruples. Fame, fame, fame over everything! The true Flower of Chivalry!’ As if in agreement, Gawain’s attacks redoubled. Being unable to launch any of his own, Lancelot was horribly aware that he could not keep this up forever—not against one with whom he was so well-matched as Gawain. He knew that if this kept up, he could only lose. He could only be slain by the hand of his beloved.

Well! It would be almost fitting, wouldn’t it?—(he blocked another thrust, managed to throw him back a few steps)—to die like that. He would be proven prophetic in his fevered worries a couple of nights ago: death at the blade of love. A manic laugh escaped him. His eyes filled with tears, and it was with far more violence than he was using in this fight that he blinked them back. He could not afford his vision to be blurred: but what an evil sight to see!

‘Gawain’— _crash_ —‘Gawain, please, please—’ he practically sobbed. ‘Tell me this isn’t you!’ he cried.

‘A true knight fights for fame and his lady,’ crooned Fame. ‘In dear Gawain’s case, they happen to be one. And they are both _me_.’

‘ _No_ ,’ said Lancelot— _crash_ —‘no—no—’ It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be; Gawain was hardly a paragon of virtue, but he was nothing like _this_ , this was not him, this was not _his Gawain—_

They locked swords. Each of them pushed, steel grinding against steel.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Lancelot, through gritted teeth.

‘Thou shouldest,’ said Fame.

‘You’re not— exactly known for speaking truth.’ He was trying to convince himself.

‘If enough people believe in something, it becomes true. And I control what people believe.’

‘You won’t make me hurt him.’

‘Oh, but I can,’ said Fame. ‘I control the stories. And in fact, I won’t just make thee hurt him: I’ll make thee kill him.’ She blew into the foul clarion.

The deafening sound, then pages and pages and pages and pages of writing in a hundred different languages filled Lancelot’s vision, words and paper filled his ears. Someone in a prison cell appeared, wrote a full stop, and vanished again.

Suddenly they were outside the gates of a city, tall with turrets. People were all around, watching with expressions pained and eager in varying ratios. They were still fighting, and Lancelot was thrown by the sudden change. ‘Traitor knight!’ spat Gawain, and surged forward, breaking Lancelot’s defence. His sword sank into his chest.

Lancelot gasped and staggered back. His hand went to the wound and was quickly hot and wet with blood. Gawain flew at him again, and, distracted by the pain, Lancelot suddenly felt all of his strength drain. This time he was not just immobile: worse: he became a puppet. He practically watched, in horror, as his body was forced to move; his hand raised his sword, brought it sailing down upon Gawain—

Such moments happen slowly. The word ‘momentous’ would not come into use for many, many centuries yet. But as he watched, apparently for aeons, his sword arc through the air, towards his closest companion, his most intimate friend, the one in all this mortal world that he loved the most, he felt the strangeness at the heart of that word. A moment with moment: a tiny, fractional blip of a second that could shift planets, let alone something as malleable, as fragile, as history. That’s not how Lancelot would remember it, though, and not only because the word didn’t yet exist. Lancelot thought, as it were, in feelings; he _felt_ things; he felt them very strongly, though most people didn’t realise that, because it didn’t fit their idea of the tall strong suit of blue-tinted armour. How did he feel this moment? He felt it with the grief he had felt as a child, hearing how Mary cried for her Son: the bright sword in its arc, the tear down the cheek.

He watched Gawain’s eyes widen, and as they did, they sparkled again. The bright wonderful green of emeralds, of spring, of life was back in them. Something happened. Lancelot’s soul seemed to suddenly flare, to become radiant, to fill with colour and light like a cathedral made effulgent by the sun, filtered through its stained glass into the boldest, purest, most resplendent hues, and Lancelot yelled. ‘ _I love him!’_

The image fractured: the towers, the onlookers, flattened into two dimensions, flickered, rematerialised, flickered again, vanished. So did the swords, both of them; but Lancelot was still in mid-swing, so he fell, with the momentum, face-first—into Gawain’s arms. Both stumbled, unsteady on the ice, but Gawain just about stopped them from falling. For a split second they gazed into each other’s eyes: the light was still there in Gawain’s, he was back, _his beloved Gawain was back_ —but as soon as Lancelot was back on his feet, Gawain pulled away again. No—it couldn’t be—the green of the eyes, the life, the feeling, the breaking of the dream—wait: oh, yes, Gawain was running; he leapt up onto Fame’s throne and dashed both clarions from her bewildered hands, sending them crashing to the floor. She screamed, flinging herself towards them, but she was too slow. Gawain had picked up the awful rusted clarion and in a single swift movement snapped it in half. 

Fame shrank to half her size. Her hundred eyes momentarily became just two; Lancelot felt like his vision had focused, no longer seeing double, or rather more; yet Gawain evidently saw it too. Only for a second. All her eyes back again, she dashed forward again. ‘ _Dioer!_ one clarion is nothing!’ she shrieked. ‘Good fame to one is evil to another! I can still choose how your story is told!’

‘No, you can’t,’ growled Gawain. He had reached the other clarion. ‘ _Poet_.’ He hurled it, and it collided with Fame’s head, who seemed almost to fold in upon herself, like paper. And then she unfolded, and all but two of her eyes had gone, and her hair was shorter, and her flowing robe had changed to gold brocade, decked in the furs of three beasts. The poet lay sprawled on the ice, blood pouring from his head. ‘You were right,’ muttered Gawain, staring at the body, unsure if it was alive or dead.

But Lancelot was not paying attention. He had gone to pick up the clarion—and as he touched it, it sent an electric thrill up his fingertips. He gasped. It was so beautiful. His eyes were drawn inexorably to its exquisitely delicate patterning; it was so intricate, so inviting, it dragged the gaze along its sinuous lines, which split off into more and more, endlessly… Somewhere, Gawain was calling his name, but he couldn’t look away; he traced the lines with his fingertips, ‘Gawain,’ he half-heard himself saying, ‘Gawain, you can have the fame you want, I can give it to you, it can be yours, we can use the clarion, you can have everything you want,’ he could give it to him, he could make Gawain love him by giving him this, this gift, his great wish, ‘your deepest desire,’ he could, ‘I could,’ he—

Gawain kissed him, and the spell shattered. The clarion clattered to the floor, and Gawain, without breaking the heavenly contact of their lips, snapped it in half under his heel. No more chattered the voices in the air. Lancelot’s soul sang celestially, perfect music summoning back the perfect colourful light, the two harmonising, symmetrical and beautiful as the meeting of his body and Gawain’s. ‘I thought,’ stammered Lancelot, drawing back only enough to speak, keeping his hands at Gawain’s nape and leaning his forehead against his, lest he disappear again, ‘I thought you wanted fame.’

Gawain kissed him, and kissed him again, as if—through his bewilderment, Lancelot’s heart leapt—he feared Lancelot might vanish too, before saying, ‘The only reason I wanted fame is because I thought it might make you—love me.’ He gave a wry, nervous laugh. ‘I don’t want fame, Lancelot, I want _you_.’

Suddenly there was a great crack in the floor, shivering through the ice and snaking up the walls; it multiplied, sending more cracks this way and that, the palace fast becoming a net of black lines. Pieces of ice began to drop from the ceiling, small shards at first then larger fragments, until whole slabs of the structure were plummeting down, the floor giving way beneath them. Lancelot and Gawain cried each other’s names, throwing their arms around each other, and the last thing Lancelot saw was a tremendous abyss, shot across with blinding multicolour rays and cascading showers of ice as they fell, fell…

When Lancelot opened his eyes, he knew, with absolute certainty, that it was the first time he had truly done so for about a day—or, rather, a night. The relief he felt was immeasurable. 

But then he was struck, in rapid succession, by all the implications of that fact. If he had been asleep the whole time, had none of it been real? Had it all been just his addled, fevered fancy: the horrible dreams-within-dreams, the poet masquerading as Fame, the—his breath caught. Had he but dreamt— _Gawain?_

He stood up in a panic, and saw he was in a cave. It felt uncannily familiar, which was odd because he had not, as far as he could recall, been in a cave for some time. He picked up his thick cloak from the rock on which he had apparently left it, and wrapped it gratefully around him. Then he made his way out of that small chamber of the cave and found himself in a significantly larger one. Next to the chamber he had been in were two more of a similar size; on the opposite side of the space was the cave entrance, through which snow continued to flurry in on a chill wind. He still could not place why it all felt familiar. ‘Gawain?’ he called, hopefully.

‘Oh—Lancelot!’ Relief flooded through Lancelot again as Gawain rushed out of the far chamber to greet him. ‘So the inn was an illusion—the bastard put us up in a cave—can you believe…’ He suddenly stopped, hesitant, standing before Lancelot. Their eyes locked, and Lancelot felt like he was experiencing at once every single thought he had ever had, and he suspected that _his_ number was higher than that of most. ‘Lancelot,’ said Gawain, in a voice uncharacteristically small. ‘Did we both—was it just in my…’ He shook his head. Lancelot could feel his own heartbeat hammering in his ears. ‘Lancelot,’ said Gawain again, bit his lip, looked away, and then looked back. ‘If I do something insane, and perhaps unprecedented, and that if seen by certain people and construed in a certain way could land me on the stake, would you be so gallant as to put it down to my having just woken up, unexpectedly, in a cave?’

‘If I construe your words correctly,’ said Lancelot, hardly able to believe what he was hearing and saying, ‘I think it need not come to that.’ And before he could think twice, he grabbed Gawain, and Gawain grabbed him, and they kissed. How could it have been more exquisite than in his dream? Perhaps it was a new sense of solidity: he felt anew Gawain’s lips on his, first in a tentative, breathy touch, then suddenly interlocking, seeking more and more contact, desperate; he tasted Gawain’s mouth, his tongue; he smelled his clothes, his hair, his skin; he heard the sounds he made, the sighs, joining his own, which escaped unbidden, but now unrestrained. He dug his fingers into his hair, thrilled to find it as soft, as silken as it had always looked; he thrilled again as Gawain did the same to him, guiding them to the nearest wall and inviting Lancelot to push him bodily against it, so that as much of them as possible was touching. 

‘Lancelot,’ panted Gawain eventually, when their lips finally momentarily parted, ‘Lancelot, I think you said something, in the House of Fame, which it looks like I didn’t dream—or we both dreamt—or something. Something I would—would very much like to hear again, only in real life, and not while we’re trying to kill each other. Do you… do you know what I mean? Did you really say it?’

He certainly hoped he knew what he meant. Yet, after years of agonising silence, it still stuck in his throat. But he looked at Gawain. He saw the flush that spread right down his collar. He saw his red lips, so newly kissed, _by him_. He saw his eyes, which had no slyness in them, no anger, no jesting, just that brilliant green light, and a soft, unknown openness, a vulnerability, that Lancelot had never seen in them before. He saw that he was doing that which was so hard for them both, they who lived in static shells of metal: he saw that, for one of the first times in his life, he was laying himself bare, and asking, from the depths of his fragile, frightened soul, for Lancelot, if he would, to do the same. ‘I know what you mean,’ breathed Lancelot. He felt Gawain’s hands, so gentle around his head, involuntarily tighten. He took a deep breath, hovering on the moment. And then he plunged. ‘I love you.’ 

Once he had said it, it was like a dam had burst. ‘I love you—I love you—oh, Gawain, by Saint Mary, by God and all the saints and every angel in Heaven, how I love you—’

‘Christ, Lancelot,’ said Gawain, with what might have been a stifled sob, and pulled Lancelot’s head down to nestle in his shoulder, wrapping him tightly in his arms, ‘I love you too—by—oh, by whoever you bloody well want.’

Lancelot could not respond, but this time it was because if he tried, he would weep. Instead he simply huddled Gawain unfathomably deeper into his arms. It was possible, even so, that Gawain felt a hot tear or two seep through his tunic. 

They stood there, whilst the snowstorm continued to moan outside, bound in each other's warmth, locked together with all the strength, the delicacy, the security, of chainmail. He wondered at the gentleness of Gawain's fingers as they wrote line after reverent line in his hair; wondered at the comforting scent of leather, musk, civet, of _him_. He kept noticing new things, new sensations, each one a miracle, the praises of which his spirit sang fervently. 

Then they were both startled by a commotion behind them. They broke apart, but Gawain caught Lancelot’s hand and interlocked their fingers as he said, with a sudden resumption of his usual brazenness, ‘Hello, Poet: or should I say, Gwydion son of Dôn? The _“dioer!”_ gave it away. That and, in hindsight, the animal skins, which is, I must say, a curious badge to carry with you, but we’ve all got our shameful symbols to bear, I suppose. Am I right in thinking this whole venture hasn’t gone _quite_ as you planned, or am I _putting words in your mouth?’_ he smirked. ‘Oh,’ he responded to himself in mock surprise, ‘hang on a minute…’

‘Not just a pretty face, Sir Gawain, I admit it.’

Lancelot, on the other hand, had absolutely no idea what was going on, and he was very distracted by the fact that he was still holding hands with Gawain, whom he had just kissed and confessed his love to and who had confessed his love back to him, _oh Thomas of Kent!_ But he found great pleasure in hearing Gawain talk charmingly and threateningly to a mutual enemy, so he just squeezed his fingers in gentle, befuddled, encouragement.

‘Well admitted,’ continued Gawain, ‘I really am all that and more. And don’t bother trying anything because your staff is right here, and for all that it’s a beautiful old piece of carpentry, I’m more than happy to bring my boot down on it, which I don’t think would do it much good, do you?’

Gwydion—apparently his name was Gwydion; Lancelot was willing to go along with that—gave a mirthless, defeated grin. Lancelot suddenly noticed that he was now emphatically old, white-bearded, in fact: certainly not the handsome young fellow who had led them here, although the likeness, somehow, was still visible. And he was still bleeding from the head. ‘ _Dioer_ , it would not. I am too weak now to do a thing with it, regardless.’ He pointed to his wound. It did not now look fatal, but it did look debilitating.

‘Why did you do all this?’ said Lancelot, who had at least pieced that together despite his overwhelmed state.

‘Because all one ever hears about is Camelot. Camelot, Camelot, Camelot. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. _Lancelot, Lancelot, Lancelot_.’ Gawain, evidently perceiving Lancelot’s pain at this, let go of his hand and put his arm demonstratively around Lancelot’s waist instead, holding him fast and close. ‘I was at the heart of stories as breath-taking as yours. I was in them, and I sang of them too. I suffered, and I watched loved ones suffer, and I made enemies suffer, and all that suffering—at least we were immortal, while our stories were still being told. None of it could be forgotten. And people understood things through it—things people, even clever people, find hard to understand. Life. Others. Themselves. 

‘I am a magician, but I am also a storyteller. He is a fool who tells you they are not one and the same profession. Both reveal. Both transform.’ He glanced around at the cave, which just for a moment flickered back into being an inn—but only for a moment. The wind gave a great howl again, and a couple of the lightest snowflakes made their way to their feet. ‘Once your Arthur lot,’ he spat, ‘you kings and conquerors, came along, it was all over for me and my stories. Your stories swept through the land: through this land, and then all the rest of them, over the seas, to each corner of the world. I decided enough was enough. The stories will always be told: I realised that. But I thought I could change what they said.’

‘But you haven’t,’ said Lancelot.

Gwydion shrugged, staring at them. ‘Maybe not. Or maybe I have. Or maybe someone else will do it for me, unwittingly.’

Lancelot felt liquid horror rising in him. ‘You mean that—the stories about Queen Guinevere—about me and Gawain outside the city—’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Gawain, firmly. He swept up the staff, and held it before him, tilting it towards the poet. ‘It doesn’t matter at all. We will always have existed, whether people tell our story this way—’ he kissed Lancelot on the mouth, looking directly, with fierce eyes, at Gwydion, ‘—or not. Maybe this won’t be the most famous story about us: and, oh, God’s wounds…’ he looked at Lancelot, with eyes adoring, and sad. ‘That would indeed be a cruel fate. But it would not be irreparable. You said yourself that the storyteller and the magician are the same. Fine. Then I am certain that one day, like it or not, there will be people who will transform that other horrible story. Maybe they’ll transform it altogether, like in Ovid’s poems. But even if they only follow _your_ footsteps and turn a cave into an inn for a night—well, the last thing I want to do is to indirectly flatter you, Poet, but that would still be pretty damned powerful.

‘I am truly sorry about your stories. Not, I hasten to add, on _your_ behalf, because frankly there is only one thing in the world that I want more, after all that you’ve put us through, than to tear your head off by your silly white beard. But fortunately for you, that _one thing_ is currently pressed extremely tantalisingly against my side. So, if you promise never to even _think_ about trying anything like this again, on pain not only of the most torturous physical death I can imagine—and you’ve seen I can be quite as creative as you (were you impressed by my acting?)—but also the most utterly remarkable propaganda campaign Christendom will ever know (which would be up against some rather stiff competition), we’ll spare your life.’

Gwydion promised, and for the first time since he had met him, Lancelot trusted him. 

‘Before I give you this back,’ said Gawain, waving the staff, ‘I’m just going to take the liberty of borrowing it for a moment.’ He tapped it on the wall of the cave, and suddenly it was an inn again. (It vaguely occurred to Lancelot that he could have been put on a stake for that, too.) ‘Perfect. Lancelot and I will need somewhere soft for tonight.’ He grinned devilishly, then handed the staff back to Gwydion. The grin vanished. ‘Careful how you use it,’ he growled, and the poet gave a brief, cowed nod, before hurrying off into the snow. They never saw him again.

A minute or two passed in contemplative silence. The fire was burning in the grate again, crackling gently. The two knights had sunk back into each other’s embrace, allowing the quiet to finally wash over them. Never in his life had Lancelot felt so at peace.

‘Gawain,’ said Lancelot eventually, ‘my love…’ He watched Gawain’s eyes soften, and his face, behind his freckles, go pink again. ‘What on Earth just happened? And how are we back in the inn?’

‘My sweet Lancelot…’ he stretched up to kiss him again, and again Lancelot was not very confident that any explanation given now was likely to go in. ‘I’m not altogether sure. But we were in Gwydion’s story—his or someone’s he’d borrowed; God knows. Well, I’ve read a few too many romans in my time; I knew what was going on. Although this seemed to be a sort of roman within a dream vision—oh, I don’t know. Still, the Arrangement—the Amplification of the theme—the ridiculous amount of _ornatus gravitas_ (did you see all that metaphor?)—the proverbs—Geoffrey of Vinsauf would have been proud. Anyway. Apparently unbeknownst to him, we started to, as it were, write it too. One glance at your face, my love...’ he looked briefly away, unusually shy, ‘I snapped right out of it. Then I had to act for a bit, to make him think I was still his character. But I’m rather practised at swooping into other people’s stories.’ There was a reflective pause. ‘Are you saying, though,’ resumed Gawain, ‘that at no point did you realise…? What about when you conjured up a sword and—’ he hesitated, and went crimson— ‘a, erm, bedsheet…?’

‘I thought of my love for you,’ said Lancelot softly. ‘And I said a prayer.’ Then the second half of Gawain’s words caught up with him and he felt himself go crimson too. Did this mean that Gawain had seen…?

‘Christ,’ said Gawain suddenly. ‘Oh Christ, Lancelot, I’ve just realised. I stabbed you. Did I stab you?’ Before he knew it, Lancelot had been dragged to a bed, his doublet deftly unlaced and flung aside, and Gawain was leaning over his bare chest, which felt very, very bare, and was rising and falling very rapidly.

‘Well?’ whispered Lancelot, and he realised the absurdity of the question before he had even asked it, ‘Is there a wound?’—as though he somehow wouldn’t know he’d been stabbed.

‘Just a few scars,’ said Gawain, breathily. He looked up from Lancelot’s chest, deep and dark and longingly into his eyes.

And, well, since Lancelot was finally not alone in a bed… ‘Then shall we continue our story?’

**Explicit Liber.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Inter urinas et faeces nascimur’ [born between urine and faeces], a horrible, misogynistic, and very famous quote from St. Augustine of Hippo. The supposedly meaningful analogy between the putrid state of humanity after the Fall of Man, and how each baby is (naturally) born, very literally, between urine and faeces, according to female (ew biological essentialism) anatomy.
> 
> ‘Troth/trawþ’: a word of many meanings, to do with truth, contracts, moral and legal codes. Centrepiece of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Origin of the word ‘betrothed’, amongst other things. By my understanding, Lancelot and Gawain would have had a troth between them insofar as they were both bound to 1) the general chivalric code, and 2) specifically Arthur and Camelot/the Round Table, but not to each other in the sense that plighted lovers would have, since they theoretically couldn’t. But maybe they could.
> 
> ‘Traitor knight’, Guinevere and Lancelot, the fight outside the city [of Benwyke], the man writing in the prison, etc.: all references to Thomas Malory and his Morte d’Arthur, which he wrote in prison, although most of the above-mentioned elements are from far more ancient traditions than that work. But I had the Morte to hand. The Guinevere/Lancelot scene I just did as I wanted (or rather, didn’t want), not following any particular version of it.
> 
> ‘abstractus’: the Latin for 'abstract', as in an abstract concept as opposed to a concrete. Before it entered the English language, the Latin was used, mostly by the Scholastics in the monasteries and universities, being a strictly philosophical term.
> 
> Nature, gemstones, harmonious music, bright colours, light, cathedrals, symmetry, etc.: the great checklist of things medieval people found most beautiful, according to the authority, Umberto Eco, and his utterly brilliant 'Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages', which I've drawn on pretty heavily for the final chapter. 
> 
> ‘Dioer!’: that is, ‘Duw a ŵyr!’ [God knows!]. An old Welsh exclamation, a bit like ‘iwis’ in English, or indeed ‘God knows’. All over the place in the tales of the Mabinogion.
> 
> 'Pater noster' [Our Father]: the first two words of the Lord's Prayer, and so often used to refer to the whole prayer. I just think writing medieval Catholics is fun -- I know, it's a niche interest. But it shaped to such an enormous extent the way they saw and understood the world and... sigh. Fascinating.
> 
> Gwydion son of Dôn: magician and poet from the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, with an ancient tradition. Honestly, if you’re at all interested, please just go and read a summary of the Fourth Branch, it’s completely wild and you won’t be disappointed. For his and brother’s crimes, they get turned into three different animals, one male one female, and made to mate together. Yeah. Those are the animals alluded to through the furs. (The ‘we’ve all got our shameful symbols to bear’ from Gawain is a nod to the green girdle from SGATGK.)  
> Gwydion doesn’t make it into any of the Arthurian texts, although there is some overlap between Arthurian material and that of the Four Branches. But he’s a fascinating character in his own right, and a useful tool for looking at storytelling, authorship, magic (closely linked), etc. Oh, and it’s implied that he can’t just conjure things from nowhere: there has to be some little resemblance between the base material and the thing it’s transformed into—hence the cave and the inn, amongst other things…
> 
> Arrangement, Amplification, ornatus gravitas: grammatical/rhetorical terms, the key features of Geoffrey of Vinsauf's extremely influential 'Poetria nova' (c.1210), which was a guidebook to poem-writing, written as a poem, full of precepts. There are evident traces of its influence on Chaucer, amongst many others. And actually I'm not sure Jeffers would've been too pleased with it, firstly because it doesn't start with a proverb. But you can't win them all.
> 
> Thank you so, so much for reading! I've put my heart and soul and 2.5 years of medieval study into this...


End file.
